Welcome to the Science of Sport where we bring you the second, third, and fourth level of analysis you will not find anywhere else.

Be it doping in sport, hot topics like Caster Semenya or Oscar Pistorius, or the dehydration myth, we try to translate the science behind sports and sports performance. Consider a donation if you like what you see here!

Series // Posts categorised as Series

Caster Semenya won the Monaco 800m in 1:55.33, at a canter, and is the surest bet for gold in Rio 2016. She's also the surest bet for controversy, and will kick start an explosive, aggressive debate. This post introduces some of the concepts, and addresses some issues around our approach to this difficult issue.

This episode of the Talent ID and management series looks at another very controversial question - should children and young athletes specialise in one sport, or should they play as many as possible? I look at how the 10,000 hour dogma drives a negative behaviour and the research which shows that optimal performance actually requires... read the post to find out!

Part 4 of the Talent ID Series, and this time we introduce the controversial 10,000 hour "rule" and I explain its origins, and the false dichotomy that leads to some undesired and inefficient behaviour

Here is part 3 of my ongoing Talent ID and management series. If you missed the first two instalments, you can view them at the following links: The strategic and tactical fundamentals of Talent – the budgeting decision Acceptable inefficiencies Today I discuss what I think is an important concept in terms of managing expectations […]

Part 2 of the series on Talent ID and Management looks at inefficiencies in the identification and selection of talent. It discusses factors driving these inefficiencies and sets up future topics of how to combat them.

Talent ID and Development - the science, strategy and tactics (not in that order) of developing future champions. This is the first in a series of posts (videos, we'll see how that goes) on this topic. Today, the entire presentation

Apologies for the long delay between posts! With a busy work period for both of us, and a slew of bank holidays here in SA, the routine has been rather disrupted. I’m still sitting on a series on 10,000 hours of training vs talent. I’m also heading to the American College of Sports Medicine Annual […]

There are many reasons to want to burn fat during exercise. For obvious reasons, in the context of the series I’m currently doing, people want to burn fat during exercise to lose weight. In that regard, one must emphasize that as much as we talk about weight loss, fat burning (or rather, a change in […]